Across the country, many mobilize against illegal immigration

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor|photo Ed Betz/AP

Immigration has become an increasingly contentious political and social issue around the country.

Organizations patterned after the controversial "Minuteman Project" along the US-Mexico border have sprung up in New England, the Midwest, the South, and the Pacific Northwest. This has led to demonstrations and shouting matches with those opposed to what they call "vigilantes."

State and local officials are working to limit government services to illegal immigrants and their children (such as college tuition and worker's compensation), requiring proof of citizenship to get a driver's license and cracking down on day labor sites where men - many in the country illegally - gather to seek work.

Concerns over terrorism, identity theft, and the national methamphetamine epidemic (which is fueled by Mexican drug cartels and Hispanic gangs operating far from the border) are part of the picture. But some observers warn of an upsurge in "nativism" - the kind of anti-immigrant feeling that has swelled at other times in US history.